Through sentences, words, and letters encoded in Kabbalah books, Kabbalists have opened the passage to a new dimension for us through which we can enter the story of our life and positively affect the events. The Hebrew Book Week held recently is a good opportunity to go on a magical journey following the books that have shaped our nation.

It is not without reason that the nation of Israel is called “The Nation of the Book.” Forever —books have been an integral part of our way of life, a key means accompanying our lives throughout the years of our development as a nation, as a society, and a country.

There does not refer to literature that burst on the scene just hundreds of years, and is dying out as technological developments penetrated our lives, but to different kind of books – books of Kabbalah, Holy books, also called “the language of the distinct, different, special.”

Holy books such as the Bible, the Talmud, The Book of Zohar, and the Midrash do not deal with rules of ethics and are not folk tales. They tell us about a special spiritual world. In addition to the great wisdom that flows from them these books, they also contain a special force, a real treasure, which can fulfill everything we desire, answer every question we have, and especially give meaning to our lives. But very few know how to discover this treasure. Those who do are the Kabbalists.

Kabbalists are ordinary people who have a great desire to discover the reasons for what is happening in our life and what our fate has in store for us, and they were the first to penetrate behind the scenes of our world. They discovered that there is a force of love and giving in reality whose only goal is to bring us to this sublime state, to be united in love and bestowal like this force itself.

They described the way to attain this in their books, the detailed guidance and the wonderful feelings they had, so that we can use it. Thus we too can read about this sublime force, about the “author” who writes the story of our lives, and learn how to change our lives for the better.

The Book of Human History

The first to feel the two worlds together, the nature of the world around us and the nature of the upper world, was Adam HaRishon (the first man), who described it in the first Kabbalah book he wrote called The Angel Raziel, “Raz” the secret language, that is, the revelation of the secrets of creation.

The book includes interesting drawings, and a person who reads it in depth immediately perceives that it isn’t a primitive man who hunted mammoths that wrote this book, but a great Kabbalist who tells us about the united soul called Adam, about its shattering into thousands of individual souls of all of humanity, and about its future connection in which they will reunite into one soul.

Dozens of books have been written by hundreds of Kabbalists, but the most outstanding book since Adam’s book is attributed to Abraham. Abraham did not intend to write a textbook but the Book of Yetzirah(Book of Creation) was basically a list of the major laws of how the spiritual world operates. Although the Book of Yetzirah is very special, it is still very hard to understand and light years away from us. It is thanks to the Book of Yetzirah and the method of connection between people, which he developed, that the nation of Israel grew and began to aspire for spirituality. Several generations later, Moses, the great Kabbalist, continued to lead the nation.

The Book of Books

Moses’ spiritual revelation gave him the power to take the children of Israel out of Egypt, and to lead them in the desert for forty years until they reached the borders of the Promised Land of Israel.

He describes the updated method for his generation in his book called the Torah, as in Light [Ohr]. In other words, it teaches how to enter the spiritual world with the Light, the divine force. By using this book, every person can reveal the image of creation and build his life toward the ultimate goal.

Although the Torah is written as a historical narrative about the exodus of the nation of Israel from Egypt, it is in fact is a description of a person’s exit from his lowly corporeal state called Egypt, and his ascent to a spiritual state called the “Land of Israel.” Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai said, “Woe to the man who says that the Torah was meant to tell a simple story and a folk tale. If the Torah was meant to tell a historical story, even the leaders of the world are better at that. Everything that is in the Torah is actually upper events and upper secrets” (The Book of Zohar). Moses used the language called the “language of the branches”—the names of objects, feelings, and actions of our world, but by that he referred to the roots of the upper world, to the concealed upper forces, to the entrances and exits of the forces of nature and even to their destructive effects.

If we look at the Torah not through it’s external shell, we will see a totally different picture, detached from the reality of this world. Instead of human figures like Moses and Pharaoh, animals, and different people, we will see the spiritual forces that operate on us, and will gradually be able to use them in order to ascend spiritually. The key to deciphering the Torah is actually in the books of Kabbalah, in The Book of Zohar.

The Book

The Book of Zohar or as Kabbalists call it “The Book” explains the five books of the Torah and tells us exactly what Moses meant. It is the basic and most important book in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Rashbi, the author of the Zohar, was the first Kabbalist who described how our thoughts and our reactions to the force that operates on us from Above rise back to the upper world, operate in it, and thus affect all the future events that will descend unto us.

Before writing The Book, Rashbi gathered a group of ten students around him, “a ten” since “the Torah can only be acquired in a group,” (Babylonian Talmud). The soul of every student matched a certain spiritual attribute in the upper world. When they connected into one soul, they were fully compatible with the Ten Sefirot, the whole structure that exists in the spiritual world. The true connection between these attributes has led to the revelation of the Light of the upper Zohar among the ten students.

“And Rabbi Shimon used to reveal the secrets of the Torah and the friends listened to his voice and responded to him in a connection each replying his share,” (Ramchal, “Adir Ba Meromim“). Because each of the friends represents an attribute of the spiritual world, their story which the whole Book of Zohar tells, is actually the description of the way these spiritual attributes descend into our world; how these ten forces lead this world; how every person can use these forces for his own sake and for the sake of others.

The Tree of Life

1,300 years later, the ARI received The Book of Zohar. He was given permission to renew the method that existed since the days of Adam. He absorbed all the Kabbalistic information since the time of Adam, processed it, and rewrote it so that the method for individuals became a method suitable for the masses. All the sources he absorbed and taught in Safed were later published as The Tree of Life, a book that teaches the way to the spiritual world and explains how we can ascend and attain eternity and wholeness. It also talks about what many are fascinated by, reincarnations. Reading and studying the ARI’s books immediately raises a person above the level of our world.

In addition to the Tree of Life, the ARI wrote twenty other books in which he presents all the laws of the creation using a clear innovative scientific method. In the introduction to his book he says that since the method was established, anyone can study Kabbalah, that the desire itself is the only criterion of whether a person can enter the spiritual world, and so with the science of Kabbalah, which he developed for his generation, anyone who has the desire to attain the goal of creation, regardless of age, gender, or nationality, can do so. Indeed after the ARI’s time many began to open up to Kabbalah and to climb the spiritual ladder to the upper world.

The Ladder

Eventually both The Book of Zohar and the ARI’s books were not intended for the systematic study of Kabbalah for the masses. Although Kabbalah is a science, there was no suitable textbook to study it until our century. The greatest Kabbalist of the 20th century, called Baal HaSulam after the Sulam Commentary he wrote to The Book of Zohar, emerged in order to fill the gap in Kabbalistic literature. He also explained all of the ARI’s books and compiled them in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, which is the major Kabbalah textbook of our time.

The Study of the Ten Sefirot includes everything all the Kabbalists who preceded him wrote throughout thousands of generations: Adam, Abraham, Moses, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and the ARI. He included many Hasidic writings and writings of contemporary Kabbalists and even referred to the views of the great philosophers of the world like Marx, Nietzsche, Locke, Darwin, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and many others.

All we need to learn about how to create the future we desire is in the writings of Rav Yehuda Ashlag. “I am happy that I was born in a generation in which it is allowed to publicize the wisdom of truth,” says Baal HaSulam. “If you ask me how I know that it is allowed, I will reply that I was given permission to reveal and to explain every single word. This has nothing to do with the ingenuity of the sage himself but with the situation of the generation, and therefore I have said that I was awarded with the revelation of the wisdom because of my generation.”

A Call for a Change

At the end of the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam rightly asks whether the language of Kabbalah books is not quite understood, “Therefore we must ask, why then, did the Kabbalists obligate each person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah? Indeed, there is a great thing in it, worthy of being publicized: “There is a wonderful, invaluable remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Although they do not understand what they are learning, through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls…Hence, even when he does not have the vessels, when he engages in this wisdom, mentioning the names of the Lights and the vessels related to his soul, they immediately shine upon him to a certain extent.”

However, they shine for him without clothing the interior of his soul, for lack of able vessels to receive them.
“Yet, the illumination one receives time after time during the engagement draws upon him grace from Above, imparting him with abundance of sanctity and purity, which bring him much closer to achieving perfection” (The Letters of Baal HaSulam).[188388]From Ynet article 6/16/16

In the News (Veche.Razved): “Academician, Head of the Department of Neurosurgery Centre of Neurology and Neurosurgery, neurosurgeon Arnold F. Smeyanovich has over 47 years of practice and has performed brain surgery on nearly 9,000 patients. …

“Yes, I can see before me a substance, the cells of which are filled with so much knowledge that I want, like Newton, to take my hat off to every researcher it. It is not clear how it ‘works’. On any signal from the nerve, ears or eyes it creates a ‘picture’. But in the end, one realizes that it is – a monkey, that is – a lamp, and this is – himself? It is clear that the brain is more powerful than any supercomputer. …

“The most amazing thing is that consciousness has no place in the body, and the relationship of the brain and the mind – is all a complex mystery. Probably, the Creator controls it.”

Answer: Today scientists are no longer afraid of talking about the concept of the Creator, and with this they confirm that this is beyond understanding, the mind, and modeling.

That is, they understand that, in accordance with some definite action of exciting an area of the brain, there is a special type of configuration of a complex relationship between them. Beyond that? They do not know.

There is a box here, there is a box there, and some kind of connection is made between them and a further connection somewhere else. But the essence of this is not understood. It is not understood what is truly happening inside, what is the thought that is imprinted in a person and gives one a sensation of the existence of a particular volume.

The thought draws a picture for a person that influences him; it becomes something, it influences him and there is the processing of information. Where is all of this? It is not in the brain.

There is, in fact, only one gigantic “brain” that I would call a force field, in which absolutely everything exists. We call this field the Creator. We are constantly connected to this field and are more or less found within it.

We must try not to limit ourselves to the gray matter or tiny particles, but understand that there is nothing besides this force field. Unfortunately, we don’t perceive it in its full capacity; we don’t see how everything is mutually connected into one unique and complete whole. The true picture of creation evades us and so it seems to us that how and where are not understood.

But it is specifically the discovery that the characteristics of the brain are infinite and that it is only that part which comes into biological contact with the spiritual supercomputer that will bring us to accept the fact that we are in fact found within the Creator and that the mission of humanity is to discover our communication with Him.

From the News Item: “Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine John Eccles…believed that the brain does not ‘produce’ thought, but only takes them from outside. … Where do theories, hypotheses, and discoveries come from? – It is not known to physiologists. I also think that the brain – being in the being, is a mystery.”

From the News Item: “- When I see how beautifully arranged the heart and brain are, which has no analogues in nature, I have no doubt that here was not without God’s hands. The great Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov wrote that ‘the brain of the individual is a body of thought of the world of thought. It is necessary to recognize the existence, in addition to the thoughts of the brain, another, higher, world. ‘”

Answer: Yes, certainly. All of us are connected through the so-called brain. But this is not a brain but the soul.

Comment: When Smeyanovich was asked, “What do you think, where is the place of the soul – in the brain, spinal cord, heart?” He responded, “I think that this substance does not need a place. If it is, then the whole body – is the hostess.”

Answer: No. The soul is an immense force field; it is the power of the higher intelligence in which we exist.

Question: Is it possible to say where it is located?

Answer: First of all, in the upper world there is no location, space, or movement. Secondly, our bodies do not exist. This is an illusion that is portrayed in us. The Book of Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah openly say, that we imagine ourselves and our world in volumes and very limited forms, that in fact, don’t exist. Rather, this is an illusion.

Question: Are academics capable of reaching this understanding?

Answer: Theoretically or in some other way they will guess, but they will not be able to reach this scientifically. This requires the possession of another vision.

They will gradually reach the wisdom of Kabbalah, become removed from their “gray matter,” and begin to perceive the world through the desire to bestow.

In the meantime, the principle for perceiving the world takes place in the investigators through the intellect, but it must happen through one single desire. To the degree that a person is integrated within it, he begins to perceive the true world.[189955]From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/4/16

If we rise and look at the whole picture, besides humanity, at inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, then we will see a special, uniform law that treats all of us as a general system. Moreover, this system is closed, integral, and perfectly interconnected in all its parts.

This is the way that nature treats everyone, and only we, people, are opposite to it in our essence.

This implies the following: If we are opposite to nature, then we can study, understand, and perceive it from the side and become like it. However not naturally, like the inanimate world, flora and fauna do, but by solely and independently rising to the common, upper degree of nature that lies even above our Universe, and above the Big Bang that started it.

This is the real human degree, the level of man, from the word “Adam,” which means similar (Domeh) to the general system. In this way we will take control over it, we will understand and perceive all of nature, penetrate its depths, and be included in it. This is where the essence lays, the purpose of our lives, and our freedom of will. Only this is worth living. Otherwise we remain miserable ants that execute the commands of our body.

And this means that we need to find a method that will allow us to stand in front of nature, to study, reveal and research it, and at the same time, through this, to form ourselves in equivalence to this universal and global nature that includes in itself the entire Universe, humanity, and who knows what else.

This is what we must reach. Only if I attain this universal system, if I open it, if I find out what I exist for, how I was created, how I live and develop, and what form of comprehensive nature I must reach, only then will I realize myself.

This is my free choice: to achieve this or not, to enter into interaction, into connection, with nature, or at least into familiarity and understanding of it, or not. A person can freely build himself by absorbing the entire system, up to the smallest details into his mind and feelings. And then he will be called a man (Adam).

In this state he combines two opposite forces within himself. On one hand, according to nature of this world, he is an egoist, but on the other hand, according to nature of the global world, he is an altruist. He has a chance to acquire the second force. And this chance is waiting for its implementation. A person is led to this opportunity and then everything depends on him—does he want it or not? He discovers the method, meaning books, mentors, and a group for its implementation, in other words, the place where he implements his connection with nature. In this way a person can move forward and develop toward the stage when nature will reveal itself to him.

And he is free on this path. After all, he can, on his own accord, freely be included in the group that teaches him how to connect, to join to the comprehensive system of nature.[191083]From KabTV’s “A New Life” 6/28/16

Question: How does the wisdom of Kabbalah see the structure of an Adam (Man)? Does it recognize that the man is arranged according to the divine image? And in the wisdom of Kabbalah, how important is knowledge about the Adam?

Answer: In our world a person is a proteinaceous creature that walks upright on two legs. He has no soul and he is no different from any other animal.

When a unique desire is awakened in a person to attain the Creator and he realizes it correctly, this desire gradually grows and expands, acquiring characteristics of the spiritual Ten Sefirot. Only this part of us is called Adam. Within it we feel the next world, the Creator. This process is called becoming similar to the Creator.”[191079]From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

Question: Does a person transcend the Machsom (barrier) due to drawing the necessary amount of Surrounding Light(Ohr Makif)? Does he transcend it after he has drawn a sufficient amount of the Surrounding Light or does he need something other than drawing the Surrounding Light in order to transcend the Machsom?

Answer:The Surrounding Light does everything.

Question:How can a person determine whether he has transcended the Machsom or not? Does something open before him in his feelings? Does a sixth sense develop in him by which he begins to feel the Creator’s presence?

New Life #747 – Love Is The Building Block Of Reality
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

Even if we don’t identify it, everything in reality is divided into four phases. After the desire to receive is filled with Light it feels the oppositeness between its state and the Light, and restricts itself.

In this process we learn the relationship between man and the Creator is possible only after the person build a love of the Creator.

It is from this process that we learn that the connection between a person and the Creator is possible only after the person builds love for the creator. The main goal of our life is to reach the revelation of the Creator during our lifetime, the general force of giving.

This world is like a playground in which we practice developing hatred and love, receiving and giving. We have some desires like those of animals: food, sex, family, and some human desires: money, respect, and knowledge.

When a person’s ego begins to develop, he begins to ask what he lives for and then he discovers that life is aimed at a special goal, which is the revelation of the upper force that manages us. The revelation of the Creator provides a person with the answers to all his questions since He is the root of everything, the force of love and bestowal.[190117]From KabTV’s “New Life #747 – Love Is The Building Block Of Reality,” 7/14/16